Yawning Man – Vista Point (Lexicon Devil)
Hypnotic desert tinged instrumental rock jams, equal parts Meat Puppets and Desert Sessions.
Various Artists – Tingling Cheeks are Love (Sensory Projects)
2 beautiful melodic amazing emotional discs that demonstrate the diversity of the label. Just being reminded of Hood and Kammerfilmmer Kolektief makes it one of my favourite musical experiences all year.
The Sun Blindness – Like Pearly Clouds (Sensory Projects)
A tripped out reverb soaked wash of nostalgia masquerading as songs. Sweet hazy druggy psychedelic jams that have this indescribable jangly melodic carelessness .
Boredoms – Super Roots #9 (Thrill Jockey)
Live Xmas eve in Japan it’s three drummers, Eye with his 2cdj’s and a 24 piece choir. The entire effect is giant overwhelming bombast, one single 40 minute piece, it’s a relentless hyperactive assault on the senses.
Dengue Fever – Venus on Earth (Real World/ Planet Company)
Cambodian/ Californian 60′s psychedelia and lounge jazz with the odd burst of surf rock, incredible singing in Khmer, like a beautiful songbird. You can imagine her in a faded Cambodian nightclub pitching gorgeous torch songs to four drunken G.I’s.
Juana Molina – Un Dia (Domino)
Argentine former TV comedian now songstress. Incredibly quirky intimate and sincere, Un Dia is infused with her unique sweet gentle slightly euphoric hysteria.
Panoptique Electrical – Let The Darkness at You (Sensory Projects)
Gorgeous ambient swirls of sound to rest your weary bones. Timeless, in that time just stops when you listen.
Dan Friel – Ghost Towns (Important)
Puts the pop in noise music. Ignoring the fact that it was never meant to be there. Searing noise anthems that make you want to burn things down.
Terminal Sound System – Constructing Towers (Extreme)
Wait you’re meant to be this frenetic drum and bass dude, what’s the deal with this late night broken down jazz? Possibly the album I listened to the most this year as I kept finding new things to intrigue me.
II – Landlakes (Feral Media)
This album has everything from post rock to experimental noise. This is a kitchen sink first album and continues to astound after repeated listens. Finally saw them live this year at the Panoptique Electrical Launch and was amazed to witness this improvised aggressive set of pedal based feedback. Beautiful.
Bruce Haack – Haackula (Omni Corporation)
Dark electronics, but more importantly dark psyche, demonstrates how the music business can tear someone apart. Doesn’t make him produce more commercial music though, just makes him bitter and angry. Thank you Mr Omni.
Monkey – Journey to the West
Damon Albarn’s cues for the Monkey stage show are hilarious fun, beautiful soulful and quite experimental, a real revelation.
Various Artists – Roots of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru (Barbes/ Planet Company)
Rickety funky kitsch killer Peruvian music that blew my poor little mind and lightened up my soul.
The Bamboos – Side Stepper
Saw the Bamboos support Roy Ayers and the joint was rocking. They make me hate Kings of Leon because their cover of King of The Rodeo is so much better than the original. Turns out it was merely the handle I needed to dive into a great soulful funk album that is about 30 years too late but nonetheless is very very welcome.
Matthew Herbert – There’s Me and There’s You (!K7)
More Big Band, Disney at the Hollywood bowl experimentalism. Sure he’s scraping 80 condoms along the floor, but really every concept behind this music is so overly ambitious that it enters the realms of the ridiculous. In a good way.
Various Artists – Nashville Sputnik (The Omni Corporation)
Just listen to the production skills of Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan. Rusty Diamond’s Skellykins is the greatest song. Ever.
Matmos – Supreme Balloon
the duo attempt to chill out from their overly conceptual work of late using only synths, oh wait, shit, that makes it kind’ve conceptual anyway. I think.
Debashish Bhattacharya – Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide Guitar Odyssey (Riverboat/ Planet Company)
Gentle ragas crafted on acoustic guitar, with occasional sitar and tabla accompaniment that moves well beyond Indian stylings, into Flamenco, Hawaiian, even Americana finger picking. Gorgeous.
Qua – Q&A
an unrestrained sugar rush of cheeky electronic pop that is as endearing as it is complex.
Lucky Dragons – Dream Island Laughing Language (Mistletone)
It’s nice when you find people who choose to not follow the rules and put music together the way it feels right to them. It’s artificial yet somehow intimate, this curious throbbing primal mass of sound. Their live show at RRR performance space was even better with heaps of toys and much audience interaction. Who knew they were such showmen.
Mike Patton – A Perfect Place (Ipecac)
Thought I was sick of his shtick, then I heard this great soundtrack to an average short film. It’s a tribute to Mancini with a bit of his wailing thrown in for good measure
Moussa Doumbia – Keleya (Oriki)
raw African beats and 70′s American funk combine in a killer reissue from the James Brown influenced Malian based in the Ivory Coast.
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